Dear SES, Perhaps I could shorten my message to make it more relevant?

 

Stan, I really meant that I think Nabokov is making a link between bodkins and a Danish prince, and he glosses it ‘stiletto’, which could be either a dagger or a needle (both according to him and in Shakespeare). I am not clear why you mentioned dogma in connection with Charles’s and my contributions. (Let’s not quarrel about it – I’m an old Liverpudlian, on some reckonings.)

 

Penny.